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Careful there, you’re not the client

He called, wanted a meeting immediately, then bulldozed his way into our office.  He insisted something needed to be done and right away. He was losing money.  No, he wasn’t the final decision maker, but  he was a damned important strategic partner and they would listen to him. He liked a spot we did for the sister company. He hated the current marketing director of the company.  She was slow, unresponsive to his requests and should be be put back into the secretarial pool or fired. He’ll put his own money in to straighten things up, by God. He’d get us a meeting with the powers that be. And on the way out he said, you might “wear a low cut top” next time we meet.

We were certainly intrigued by this prospect. What if “this” and what if “that” began to float around. It could be a nice piece of business, but I resisted the urge to do any spec work-it didn’t feel right. (It wasn’t the low cut top comment, trust me.)

Anyway, good thing we didn’t spend a lot of time prepping a pitch. After raising every kind of hell, this important “strategic partner” was told flat out by the real decision makers this was none of his concern. Yes, they loved what adchicks team did for their sister company, but they are quite satisfied with their current mediocrity.

The moral of this story:  Never count your chickens before they’re hatched.

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That’s one…

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This entry was posted on November 6, 2009 at 9:54 am and is filed under From the chick's nest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Careful there, you’re not the client”

  1. Dave Knockles Says:
    November 6, 2009 at 9:48 pm

    This chap sounds like my kind of operator!

    Of course, he probably couldn’t hold a candle to Dave Knockles (not many can) but he seems to be going about life in the right manner.

    Shame you didn’t work with him. If he’s anything like me, he’d have shared his infinite marketing wisdom with you.

    Anyway, see if my take on Creative Directors agrees with yours.

    http://iamtheclient.blogspot.com/2009/11/agency-characters-no-3-creative.html

  2. andywebb Says:
    November 14, 2009 at 9:05 pm

    Ah yes, the rogue decision maker… capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and sucking others into his make-believe world of self-importance.

    You were wise not to get lured into what would have been a fruitless exercise that could have damaged your existing client relationship.

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